Top Technology Trends in BI and Analytics: Maximize Your Chance of Success

Ever-changing customer expectations demand agility and governance in the same breath. Advancements in data discovery and analytics continue to accelerate. But wait! The wave of data analytics centric innovation isn’t even over.

Watch this webinar on how top trends in business intelligence (BI) and analytics are evolving to put relevant and timely insights in the hands of more users and decision makers. What actions must be taken to stay ahead and avoid being paralyzed?

· Visual data discovery and approachable analytics will continue to entice more users.
· Business user-led projects and bottom-up experimentation demands more data governance.
· Self-service data preparation is emerging and addresses a high-value problem.
· Mobile BI and location intelligence has traction, but still some organizations are on the fence.
· Cloud adoption continues to grow. Have you identified which business problems are relevant?

According to a recent study by Bain & Co., realized price affects EBIT more than any other lever: for every 1% increase in realized price there is an 8% increase in EBIT. Yet most companies expend great efforts on improving other levers with less impact and longer time-to-benefit. Most focus on aggressively reducing variable costs, but a 1% reduction in variable costs only leads to a 3% increase in EBIT, and takes much longer to achieve.

Applying advanced analytics to improve company performance is increasingly popular for manufacturers, from quality to reliability to supply chain. To make the most from analytics-based competitive advantage manufacturers need to challenge their existing approach to pricing, and stop leaving money on the table.

Join us to:
* hear the different ways analytics can help with pricing design, analysis and optimization
* understand the underlying mathematical approaches, technologies and deployments
* learn from other manufacturers experiences through case studies

Organizations need a way to get extremely fast insight from any-size data and share it with co-workers of varying skill sets – wherever they happen to be.

Look no further! SAS Visual Analytics lets everyone, even those without significant analytics skills, explore and analyze data. It allows users to quickly see connections and correlations, then immediately share results via the Microsoft Office tools you use every day.

Join us for this webinar to see:

- How common Microsoft Office tools infused with SAS Visual Analytics capabilities can help you share analytics insight.
- How SAS Office Analytics empowers analysts with data preparation and analytics within a familiar environment.
- Ways to explore your data and glean insight that surpass traditional visualization and reporting.

Travis Murphy, Marketing Lead for Business Intelligence and Data Visualization, SAS

Join us to find out the perfect blend of creative freedom and data governance that comes from leveraging the power of SAS Visual Analytics and the familiarity of Microsoft Office. We'll load data from Office applications to SAS Visual Analytics, analyze the data to get insights in seconds, and empower you with smarter presentations to tell the best story about your business.

Darryl Ivan, Risk Management expert from SAS Canada and Bob Morison, Lead Faculty Member of IIA

A new set of international reporting standards (IFRS 9) goes into effect for Canadian financial services institutions late next year. With those standards come new complexities and risks, new data and analytics requirements, and new business opportunities for banks that can get ahead of the curve by modernizing their accounting and risk management platforms and putting those platforms to innovative use.

This webinar will explore the challenges and opportunities related to IFRS 9 and provide insights into how financial services institutions can optimize for both.

Successful data science and analytics projects should focus on the explanation and delivery of business impact – this requires strong collaboration between business analysts and data scientists. Preparing rich representative data is important, but data discovery and predictive analytics are equally valuable – they enable team members to quickly evaluate which events are drivers or inhibitors of success, and to predict future outcomes. Throughout the course of a project, how can business analysts stay focused on the most important details? How can data scientists prototype and operationalize models in a quick, productive, and easy-to-use manner?

In this webcast, we will use SAS Visual Analytics and SAS Visual Statistics to teach you how to:

• Quickly identify predictive drivers
• Discover outliers by using interactive tools
• Use drag-and-drop features to build predictive models
• Simultaneously build models and process results for each group or segment of data
• Visually explore your predictive outputs or values
• Compare your models and apply them to new data

The Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics market has undergone a major shift. More interest and usage is driven by business users and analysts for an interactive style of analysis and a decentralized, easy-to-use approach to reporting, dashboards and analytics. On other end, IT wants to deliver this in a reusable, and governed manner. As adoption of BI and analytics increase, a scalable and modern platform is equally important for organizations to drive revenue and growth.

Join this Webinar to see how Fraport, owner and operator of Frankfurt Airport, has taken full advantage of interactive reporting and analytics to provide real-time information on passenger behavior and baggage delivery to improve customer satisfaction continuously.

Public health projects vary in scope but always have critical data and analytic needs. From data collection and reporting to prevention analysis and control, public health agencies play a fundamental and complex role in keeping our communities safe.

In this webcast, SAS will show how health organizations can use SAS Visual Analytics to uncover trends and patterns within their operating environment and transform those to actionable information to decision makers.

The content of this demonstration is based on publicly available West Nile data from California Public Health Open Data Portal. The dataset contains positive cases of West Nile virus found in humans by county of residence from 2006 to 2015.

Dashboarding and data visualization empower you with:
- Ability to easily create custom reports and do real-time analysis of health/non-health data sets in near real-time
- Pre-built reports and templates provide support for analyzing and monitoring health data in addition to the impactful relationship between health and non-health data
- Advanced predictive analytics integrated into a reporting environment to streamline health analytic initiatives and get the right people the right insight at the right time

While there are clear advantages to giving more users more control over how they access and interact with data through more self-service technologies, organizations need to think about how they can properly govern their experiences. Governance considerations include data security, quality, blending and integration, and adherence to policies and regulations. IT also needs to manage performance, availability, and other issues that are critical to successful and productive user experiences.

Join this Webinar to find out how your organization can get to the next level with visual analytics and governed data discovery. The Webinar discussion will focus on key steps for improving users’ data interaction experiences through better-governed visual analytics, data discovery, and intuitive, easier-to-use BI. It will include a presentation by TDWI Research and topical panel discussion with representatives from SAS and TIBCO Spotfire.

You will learn:

* Current technology trends for improving personalization, productivity, and the scale, scope, and speed of visual analytics, data discovery, and intuitive BI
* Best practices for “governed” data discovery; balancing IT responsibilities for managing data assets with user demands for control over analytics
* Addressing data quality, integration, and related governance concerns while supporting democratized visual analytics and data discovery
* Discussion with technology solution providers SAS and TIBCO Spotfire about how users can get to the next level

Ever-changing customer expectations demand agility and governance in the same breath. Advancements in data discovery and analytics continue to accelerate. But wait! The wave of data analytics centric innovation isn’t even over.

Watch this webinar on how top trends in business intelligence (BI) and analytics are evolving to put relevant and timely insights in the hands of more users and decision makers. What actions must be taken to stay ahead and avoid being paralyzed?

· Visual data discovery and approachable analytics will continue to entice more users.
· Business user-led projects and bottom-up experimentation demands more data governance.
· Self-service data preparation is emerging and addresses a high-value problem.
· Mobile BI and location intelligence has traction, but still some organizations are on the fence.
· Cloud adoption continues to grow. Have you identified which business problems are relevant?

The challenge of managing millions of size and location requirements is overwhelming, and the results are not readily scalable with our given staff. While technology and vast amounts of data help create more localized assortments based on consumer preferences, product attributes and location performance, it’s nearly impossible to narrow the assortment management process to the size level with great accuracy.

Every contact the guest or patron has with your operation is an opportunity to foster loyalty, leading to increased visits and on-property spending. Technology captures details of these interactions, but disparate systems in multiple touch points across hotels and casino make accessing and integrating guest profiles extremely challenging. In this session we will learn how Gaming and Hospitality companies can leverage their hidden data assets to understand their most valuable customers. Join us for a hands-on look at how to get the most value from your data.

The Mavens of Big Data Webinar Series: Part 4
“Data is a corporate asset” has achieved platitude status, yet companies are still looking for the answer to the age-old question of “How much is our data worth?” Executives have become increasingly aware of the value of data (internally and externally) and are attracted to potential new revenue streams from information-based products and services.

In this session, we will examine what data monetization is, review current practices across industries, and help identify paths to revenue generation though data. We will explore the opportunities and challenges organizations face when implementing data monetization strategies as well as the requisite skills and capabilities needed for success. We will also review imperatives for driving and delivering internal business value through data to thrive in the rapidly developing digital economy.

The Mavens of Big Data Webinar Series: Part 3
Optimized. Efficient. Agile. Reliable. Stable. Structured. Everything that is important to a technology geek and everything the world of big data seems to elude. Travelling through the world of big data can seem like a daunting journey through unchartered territory.

This session will provide you - the weary, travelling technical intellectual - with a guide to the unstructured, unfamiliar, and ever-changing world of big data, Hadoop, and open source software. We will look at the components and tools in the open source Hadoop ecosystem that are needed for managing storing, managing and acting on data of all shapes, sizes and types. We will also explore the pluses and minuses of integrating open source software in your traditional, proprietary environment.

The Mavens of Big Data Webinar Series: Part 2
The customer experience is as valuable to your organization as it is to your customer. Employees equipped with data and insights to provide the ideal customer experience are more productive and effective, which not only leads to increased customer satisfaction, but employee satisfaction as well. It should be no surprise that committed employees and loyal customers lead to profitably and success. Are you providing the ultimate data-driven experience for your customers and your employees?

In this session, we’ll look at what it means to be data-driven; four key characteristics of successful, data-driven organizations; warning signs that your organization may not be as data-driven as you think; and finally, what it takes. If actions speak louder than words, make sure your organization’s data-driven actions are consistent and speak volumes internally and externally.

The Mavens of Big Data Webinar Series: Part 1
Big data has ushered in a host of new development and usage models. Open source projects have become software products, end users have become knowledge workers, statisticians have become data scientists and new chief officers are on the rise. How is big data affecting your organization? Who owns it? Is it really all about the data scientist? And do you need a new crop of stakeholders different from the everyday BI end users of days gone by?

In this session, we’ll discuss existing roles, skills and cultural norms, and highlight key practices to overcome organizational obstacles. We’ll also share sample workflows that illustrate collaboration and rules of engagement for big data. It’s not just about the technology; it’s about people too. Your people.

Decision making and organizational strategies are only as good as the data behind them. But benefiting from data can be a real challenge if it’s stored in various locations, hard to access and diverse.

During this on-demand webinar hear directly from data management experts and an organization that has broken down data silos and improved critical decision making.

In just one hour, you’ll learn:

•How to overcome core challenges and struggles.
•How to drive strategy development and data initiatives.
•How a government contracting firm best serves constituents and agency partners with quality, agility and efficiency.

In this free, live webinar, the authors of the research report, "Beyond the Hype: The Hard Work Behind Analytics Success" will share the findings and insights from their research. The presentation will be followed by a live Q&A session with the speakers.

The research found that organizations with successful formal analytics strategies exhibited four key characteristics: executives are both proponents and users of analytics; managers blend analytics and intuition when making decisions; analytics is applied strategically; and analytics initiatives help with both optimizing operations and improving strategic decision-making.

In this webinar, you'll learn the importance of:
* data awareness.
* openness to new ideas to cultivate both innovation and competitive advantage with analytics.
* signals about the importance of analytics, including data councils, data labs, and centers of excellence.
* blending analytics with intuition in decision making.

Successful business leaders continually seek two things: Cost savings and revenue growth. Based on recent IndustryWeek research featuring the participation of over 400 manufacturing leaders, the Industrial Internet of Things is uncovering new, real-world opportunities for doing both every day.

Learn what your peers are doing today to be on the leading edge of new revenue opportunities and the approaches they take to innovative cost-saving opportunities enabled by networked data-collection technology and advanced analytical capabilities. Industry Week researcher David Drickhamer joins industrial IoT experts Cliff Whitehead of Rockwell Automation and Marcia Walker of SAS to discuss what leaders are doing today to strengthen their foundation for financial success.

Join us to learn:
· Executive perceptions, concerns, benefits and strategies for leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things
· What your peers are doing now to be on the leading edge of new revenue opportunities
· Approaches to using the data you have today to save money now and make money tomorrow
· How powerful, yet user-friendly, analytics applications enable everyone from the shop floor to the C-suite

Machine learning is changing the way organizations look at analytics. Data scientists are being recognized as a key component in organizational analytics, but management often doesn't understand their work or know how to effectively manage them.

Many businesses understand that analytics has moved beyond the data warehouse, and are pushing analysts and IT to grab and analyze data from new sources, even though they may not be ready to derive business value from it.

Open source is seen as the path to machine learning innovation, despite challenges with deployment and approachable user interfaces. For organizations using or looking to adopt machine learning techniques, moving forward may be a challenge and measuring success even trickier.

In this webcast, we will:

-Discuss how different organizations are finding success with machine learning.

-Look at how organizations are feeding the creativity of data scientists, making analytics accessible to business experts, and pushing the analytics closer to the data.

-Identify how organizations are automating analytics processes in order to free up time for new analytics, new data and new business problem domains, ultimately creating real competitive advantage.

It is possible to identify best practices based on other organization’s analytics implementations and understand the applicable success that can be leveraged for internal IoT analytics projects. Learn how early adopters are gaining competitive advantage through IoT analytics adoption.

In today's organizations, you need to get relevant data quickly to drive faster business decisions. With big data, sometimes that's easier said than done.

SAS® Business Intelligence offers predictive insights with the ability to understand the past, monitor the present and predict outcomes, no matter the size or complexity of your data. In fact, SAS helps you deliver accurate, valuable information – from Hadoop or any other big data source.

One of the key components of SAS Business Intelligence, SAS Visual Analytics, offers self-service data discovery, enabling even nontechnical business users to explore billions of rows of data in seconds. With this tool, you can discover more opportunities and make more precise decisions, easily publishing reports to the Web and mobile devices.